In recent days, more than twenty students from Zhejiang University were denied visas to the UK because teachers from the university collaborated with agents to forge an invitation letter from the University of Cambridge. The incident has sparked public attention.
On the afternoon of December 17th, Zhejiang University’s School of Economics issued a situation report stating that a special task force has been set up to investigate the denial of visa applications for a joint forum event in the UK. The police have received reports from the school and students and have initiated an investigation.
According to reports from Jimo News and DuTec News on the 17th, a netizen recently posted that in a joint overseas exchange program between Zhejiang University’s School of Economics and the University of Cambridge, the faculty member in charge of the project did not directly contact Cambridge University but instead used an intermediary agency to handle visa matters, allegedly using a forged invitation letter from Cambridge University.
Chat records circulating online show that in a group chat titled “5th Ph.D. Joint Forum Zhejiang University – Cambridge,” a student expressed, “I have met the graduation requirements. If my 10-year (UK) visa is denied due to the teacher’s reasons, I will hold you accountable.”
Some netizens indicated that the root cause of the issue was the fabrication of an invitation letter by school teachers and agents posing as professors from Cambridge University. “They produced a fake invitation letter, forging the signature of a Cambridge professor. When the embassy applied for visas this time, they called Cambridge University, and that professor, seeing so many Chinese students coming, said it wasn’t true. The embassy concluded that our documents were forged. Even if I got the visa, because all our names are on the invitation letter, they will find out and revoke the visa.”
After the exposure of the incident, students involved in the program faced a 10-year visa denial from the UK visa center, including some students who had already applied for further studies at higher education institutions in the UK.
In a similar vein, due to the “DSE fraud case,” the University of Macau recently announced that in response to policy adjustments, from the 2025/2026 academic year onwards, the university will temporarily cease admitting non-Gaokao students from mainland China for undergraduate applications.
In November of this year, Sing Tao News reported that the Hong Kong Examinations Authority had recently discovered that over 20 students enrolled at the Macau University of Science and Technology had submitted forged Hong Kong Diploma of Secondary Education (DSE) results. Macau’s Judiciary Police mentioned that parents successfully enrolled their children with fake academic credentials through online agencies.